Lou Caldarola of Kicksville

Hello, Modern Drummer readers. Lou Caldarola of Kicksville here. I wanted to take a moment to tell you all about our latest projects.

We’ve just started working on The Singles—Season 3. Skope magazine gushed about The Singles—Season 1: “If you want to spend an hour in an entirely different dimension, Kicksville is for you.” And The Singles—Season 2 got Brian Baker of Blurt magazine and Cincinnati City Beat to write, “Any sounds that can be attributed to Kicksville are among the most fascinatingly original that are being foisted upon an unsuspecting world.”

Kicksville is a unique and interesting situation for me, in that I’m able to utilize styles and techniques from just about every genre of music. It also allows me to blend my playing styles with pre-recorded loops, click tracks, percussion or drum beds, and various soft synths, which opens a whole new world of options to explore. This allows me to create rather unconventional drum parts in some cases, not to mention the fact that the various setups—there are multiple drum stations on stage—include electronic drums, hand drums, hubcaps, the “cow-kit,” and more.

I’ve received a number of inquiries about my “different” playing style lately, and I’m in the process of recording in-studio videos specifically addressing these questions. I’m a natural left-handed player who learned on a kit set up for a right-handed person. Though I play the kick and hi-hat conventionally, my hand technique is still predominantly “lefty,” which leads me to usually play open-handed, leading with my left, and on occasion switching to traditional right-hand style, often within the same song. You can view my first video from the series, demonstrating the song “Bestride The Narrow World,” at www.youtube.com/user/lucien2112#p/u/0/beoBXYIH2eo.